


the sun will set for you

by VeloxVoid



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Feels, Depression, Descent into Madness, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, Love Confessions, Multi, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Friendship, Surprise Kissing, Tragic Romance, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26016820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeloxVoid/pseuds/VeloxVoid
Summary: in cards and flowers on the windowyour friends all plead for you to staysometimes beginnings aren’t so simplesometimes goodbye’s the only way-----Marianne has changed over the years, and Hilda can only reminisce. Her sweet, shy paramour, lost. Become a wreck, become a beast, become a stranger. Friendship astray, but love never leaving.Claude can only watch Dimitri’s descent into madness from a distance, losing him more and more by the day. What was once so coveted – and so tantalisingly clandestine – becomes swallowed up by darkness.Hilda and Claude have each other, though, and they will try. They will battle for their love.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Claude von Riegan, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan, Marianne von Edmund & Hilda Valentine Goneril, Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	the sun will set for you

* * *

**Hilda**

_In their academy days, Marianne’s kisses had been sweet. Fleeting, and shy. A prey animal, terrified of danger, slowly emerging from its cover to taste the sweet berries from the bush just out of reach of its territory. It would get a glimpse of that sweetness – the delight of Hilda’s lips against hers, warm and inviting – and would want more. Yet a single rustle from the shrubs beyond – a hand cupping her cheek, a breath too loud, a giggle let slip – and the animal would disappear, dashing back to safety, gone as quickly as it had arrived._

_Marianne’s warmth would always be snatched away from Hilda too soon; their lips parting as quickly as a bird taking wing. Hilda could do nothing except watch Marianne’s eyes drop to the floor, wide and dejected, as rich and deep as melted chocolate. Was she anticipating judgment? Fearing punishment? Cursing herself, for acting so foolishly? Her fingers would play around one another, nails digging into the porcelain of her skin to leave angry red marks. A habit she had noticed Marianne adopt way back at the start of the academy, and one that pulled at her heartstrings to see._

_Hilda would take Marianne’s hands in hers, feeling the chill to her fingertips, watching those chocolate-drop eyes widen in fear._

_“It’s okay,” Hilda would reassure her in a whisper. And Marianne would nod in return, opening her fingers to let Hilda’s between them. Hilda would squeeze delicately, tighten her smile, and they would head back to the dormitories together, hand in hand, for Marianne to sleep off the woes that so evidently plagued her._

_All of that changed as time went on. Long gone were those fleeting, shy kisses filled with apprehension and the promise of more. Eventually they became replaced with empty ones – ones with glazed-over eyes and a sigh afterwards. And later still, they became replaced with something else – something awful. A vigour too fiery for Marianne, one that scared even feisty, rough-and-tumble Hilda. A passion that was not loving, but hateful. One that left Hilda wondering what went wrong._

_A handle on reality can be loose, and can slip as easily as if it were never there at all. Marianne’s fingers gripped onto the cliff-edge as her feet dangled helplessly beneath her, her knuckles white and trembling with exertion. To pull her up would take all of Hilda’s might, would take begging – pleading – for cooperation. Even still, Marianne could simply let go; she could do so on purpose, eyes closed, whispering a goodbye, or she could do so by accident, muscles giving way and leaving Hilda with only a scream growing quieter as she plummeted downwards._

_Hilda could not let that happen. Her greatest fear was that it already had._

* * *

**1st of the Blue Sea Moon; 1880**

Their first fleeting kiss had happened beneath the moon.

Hilda would never forget it; the 1st of the Blue Sea Moon – a bitterly cold night despite being in the midst of summer. Hilda supposed that was the first odd thing about the night. The second was the howls that filled the sky, descending from the wolves atop the mountains in the distance. Those howls sounded deathly; a dirge – a mourning chorus whose song served only to penetrate deep into the bones of all who listened and fill them to the brim with fear.

They lasted for hours. The sun had set at 6pm, and without anything left to do after dinner, the students of Garreg Mach had wandered back to their dormitories, lost souls. At 8pm had come the first howl. Long and steady, scarcely more than a whisper above the winds that rattled the shutters and whistled through the window panes.

Yet when the second, third, and fourth howls had joined in, they could no longer be ignored. More accompanied them as the hour passed – perhaps ten, perhaps twenty – and sent creeping fingers of ice to brush up and down the spines of the monastery’s every occupant.

Hilda was sketching absentmindedly at her desk when she noticed it. Ignoring her homework, she had decided to design a dress in a new style that she hadn’t tried before; one that accentuated an hourglass figure before billowing out at the knees, reminiscent of a mermaid tail from ancient folklore. Sketching the ankle frills in feathery pencil strokes was therapeutic – the repetitive flicks of the wrist let her mind wander onto subjects that truly mattered to her.

Tonight, those thoughts pertained to Claude.

What, oh what, was going on with him?

He had been so happy recently. Granted, he had always been the happy-go-lucky type – a foolish innocence seeming to permeate the air around him despite the fact that he was quick-witted and cunning deep-down. The happiness that accompanied him now, however, was different. His emerald eyes no longer swam with anxiousness in spite of his japes – now, they were brighter: bolder. The smile that chaperoned his jovial remarks was unabating – unrestrained.

It was nice to see. It made Hilda’s smiles more sincere as well, to see her best friend in such a frame of mind. What was curious, though, was how he wouldn’t tell her _why._

“You’ve been happier recently,” she’d told him at dinner, watching him happily stuff his face with his favourite foods. “Why?”

Claude’s eyes had merely flickered to the other end of the room, settling on something and brightening, taking on the hue of a forest canopy kissed by sunlight. “Nothing. Just in a good mood,” he had simply said.

Hilda sighed and changed the direction of her pencil strokes, beginning to shade the folds of the dress.

Claude was such a mysterious soul that she supposed she would never truly know what was on his mind; no amount of guesswork could infiltrate the deep, dark den of secrets he had built to protect himself. She was just debating whether to knock on his door to ask him again, to find out once and for all--

That was, until she heard the howl. Carried into her bedroom on the wind, strolling in so casually, as if welcomed, and beginning to lounge around her ears with its eerie caress. Hilda felt her skin crawl, felt each hair stand on end until she was driven to stand, muscles twitching.

The noise awakened something primal within her – an unease that set her stomach to churning. Something inside her told her to run, to bolt, to get away.

She put her pencil down delicately, willing her mind to calm – to think rationally. She turned and walked slowly to the door, opening it and finding the corridor full. Bodies were pressed against one another, some still in uniform like her, others in pyjamas, peering out of the corridor’s windows. Annette Dominic squeaked at the back wanting to see over the others, while Ferdinand von Aegir and Caspar von Bergliez raced to the stairs to investigate outside.

“Can you see anything!?” A voice hissed.

“No! I can just hear it!” Another replied.

Panic settled in once Hilda realised she could not see Claude. His behaviour recently had been enough to make worry curdle with the contents of her stomach, but the lack of his silhouette amongst the chaos drove her to fear; he was usually the first at the scene in odd moments such as these.

She took off down the corridor to his bedroom door and rapped her knuckles upon it.

“Claude?” Her voice carried above the babbling behind her, and she pressed her ear to the wood to listen for a response from inside. “Claude, are you in there?”

Nothing. Biting her lip, Hilda slipped a hand around the door handle and pushed down on it, but was met with resistance. It was locked.

Perhaps that was promising. Turning around once more to the corridor’s stairwell, Hilda recalled the students rushing downstairs. It made sense for Claude to have headed outside – to get to the root of the issue. She followed.

The paths on the outside of the dormitories were lit by torches, effusing their fiery orange glow into the indigo of the night sky. Students stood, chattering excitedly as the howls passed through their ears, a lonely high-pitched wail.

“You heard it, Hilda!?” Leonie bounded up to her, smile on her face.

But Hilda cared more about Claude than the noise. “Sure have. Say, have you seen Claude around?”

“Claude? Nah--” A swelling of the howls once more made Leonie’s head turn, grin lighting up her face. They were louder outside – eerier. Lysithea ran to Leonie’s side, sounding somewhat concerned, and Hilda managed to slip away.

Walking further down the path and looking around once more, she did not see Claude amongst the groups of chattering students. She saw no golden cape billowing out behind him in the breeze, nor the familiar silhouette of his short dark curls. She did, however, see somebody else.

Marianne von Edmund stood alone, away from the others, looking out into the sky. This would not have been so alarming were it not for the fact that her hair was loose. Sky-blue waves lapped at her elbows, her usual braids having been released into the vast expanse that fell down her back in a thick sheet. Hilda had never seen her hair down before – had no idea it was so long and healthy. She hadn’t anticipated the natural twists forming loose, lazy ringlets, nor the layers cut into it to give it such astounding volume.

She found herself next to Marianne, feet having taken her to her side as if by magnetism, but the other woman did not notice her presence. She wore a nightgown, the material white and heavy, falling down to her ankles and wrists. Slippers adorned her feet, but her hands were bare, pulled up to her chest and wrapped around one another as if in prayer. Her nails dug into her own skin, grip looking frighteningly strong.

“Marianne…?” Hilda asked as she looked into the young mage’s face. Her eyes, so round – down-turned slightly in a perpetual frown – were open wide, fixated on the sky above.

“I don’t like this, Hilda,” her gentle voice said. On cue, the howls started up again louder, ringing through the heavens above to surround Garreg Mach with their chorus. Her eyebrows were twisted, fear running through them. Her lips were tight and white with fear, trembling slightly.

Hilda had never seen Marianne so perturbed. Shy and stuttering, yes. Withdrawn, definitely. But to witness her so stricken – possessed by the wolves’ unearthly song – was new. All worries of Claude had been forgotten.

Hilda spoke her mind. “I don’t like it either.”

“Something feels wrong about it.”

“As if they’re trying to warn us. Like a warhorn, but it never ends.”

Marianne nodded, gaze centred on the mountains in the distance. “I wonder what they’re saying.” The hair that fringed her forehead, cut to hang just above her eyebrows, blew in the wind to expose the skin beneath; somehow, it made her look more delicate. More vulnerable. Standing in her nightgown and slippers, hair loose, she looked another person entirely – frightened, in need of protection.

Hilda outstretched a hand towards her. “Shall we walk? Take our minds off it?”

That tore Marianne’s eyes from the sky. She blinked down at Hilda’s hand as if seeing it for the first time. Confusion was etched into every corner of her face. “A walk around the monastery?” she asked, whisper barely audible above the wolves’ song.

“Sure.” And Hilda smiled.

Marianne’s hand, so cold it sent a shiver down Hilda’s spine, wrapped around her own. Hilda began to walk, heading away from the bustle of baffled students and into the empty grounds of Garreg Mach.

“It looks so different at night,” Hilda said, trying to keep her rising unease at bay. “The shadows make it look like a completely different place.”

Marianne made a noise of affirmation. “There’s an odd comfort to a place at night, though.”

“You think so?”

“I do. It’s lonelier. And quieter, of course.”

As they continued to walk, Hilda became aware of the silence. The excited crowds were behind them, the number of torches dwindling until the paths ahead of them became lit only by moonlight. Overhead, the Blue Sea Moon shone in a crescent, bathing them in its milky light, and the air was still.

Except for the howls.

They were like death moans, high and agonised, cracking slightly every so often but otherwise a still, monotone wail. Marianne pulled her free hand up to her chest again and Hilda shivered as a chill washed across her skin. She knew not where they were walking, barely able to discern one pale, moonlit wall from another, but she followed Marianne, their fingers interlaced.

When she heard the water rushing in the distance, she knew Marianne was taking her to the bridge. Its walls were low, and the river beneath weaved an inky-black path through the earth below it, its surface reflecting the white of the moon. The two young women reached the bridge and stopped, looking out into the murk beyond, listening to the current roar over the wolves to create a melancholy atmosphere – two sounds battling over one another: one soothing, one unnerving.

As if suddenly realising that their hands were joined, Marianne took hers away, clearing her throat slightly. She placed it upon the bridge’s wall, running her fingers across the smooth brick.

“Is this where you come to get away?” Hilda asked her.

Marianne chuckled. “Is it that obvious?” she asked, voice as gentle as the breeze.

Hilda thought for a moment. Yes, she supposed, it _was_ obvious.

Marianne was the quietest of the Golden Deer. The most soft-spoken, the shiest, seeming physically the smallest. She would always sit in a corner, or at the end of a bench – always with her head down and hands in her lap, as if trying to occupy as little space as possible. Sometimes, she would not even show herself at all – would disappear, not seen again until the next morning.

And now, on this night of the 1st of the Blue Sea Moon, when she had been so shaken – chilled to the core – she had taken Hilda here. To the bridge, to look out at the sky above and fields beyond, even if they were hidden beneath the cover of night.

“A little obvious, maybe.”

The two women laughed.

Hilda turned away from the river and faced Marianne, watching the profile of her face. Now, her eyebrows were not strained with fright – they were relaxed. She looked at peace, hair crowning her head like a halo where the wind disturbed it, utterly enamoured with the black waters below. Hilda liked to see her this way.

“Your hair looks nice when it’s down, you know.”

Marianne blinked, disbelieving, before turning to look at her.

As soon as they locked eyes, the howl of the wolves fell silent. The air stopped ringing, and the chill in Hilda’s bones became replaced by a warmth that spread throughout her. Lit only by the moon, Marianne’s face looked sharp – cheekbones high, chin slightly pointed, cupid’s bow arched above soft, plump lips that were so superbly beautiful they looked carved from marble. Her eyes were the most startling, though. Big and round and filled with emotion. They blinked at her now, sentiment swimming within.

“You mean that?” Marianne whispered.

“Mean what?” Hilda whispered back. Her mind was numb, filled with only one thought: _Marianne._

“You… said that my hair was nice.”

“Oh.” And she smiled, reaching out one hand to tuck a lock of the thick blue curls behind Marianne’s ear. Something overcame her, clicking inside her brain; something more primal than the call of the wolves. Something so much more important – something connected to Marianne.

The young mage’s eyes grew wide. “O-oh…?” When Hilda stepped closer, her boots brushing the tips of Marianne’s slippers, they grew even wider.

“I definitely meant it.”

Was that the sound of the river coursing in Hilda’s ears, or the rush of her own blood? Perhaps it was both, for when she found herself leaning closer, watching Marianne’s lips part slightly, her heartbeat felt as powerful as a horse’s hooves, attempting to plunge out of her chest. Yet still she continued, until the chilly skin of the other woman’s nose brushed against hers, those cold and dainty fingers wrapped around her own, and she kissed Marianne von Edmund for the very first time.

She was drawn to her. And when their lips met, it felt so truly, utterly _right._ As if they were meant to be one – as if this was what she had been missing for the first eighteen years of her life. Marianne’s fingers squeezed hers as her soft lips kissed back, welcoming Hilda’s touch, and time stood still.

The wolves were quiet. The breeze died down. Marianne’s warmth completed Hilda Valentine Goneril. She had not even realised before now her feelings for the heir of Edmund, but they unravelled within her brain in that moment as if a pristine scroll had been laid out before her: undisputable, clear as day.

Marianne was perfect. So quiet, so unassuming, but beautiful. Loveable. Her shyness and stutters and never-ending apologies so endearing. She was everything Hilda could have wanted; empathetic, caring so much more about others than herself; polite, always well-mannered; intelligent, white magic prowess unrivalled; most importantly though, she was a good friend. Always there for the others in their time of need. Hilda had not found herself in need of emotional support yet, but she had never once doubted that Marianne would be the person to go to if ever she did.

The list of reasons Hilda liked Marianne went on, as did their kiss. That one kiss seemed to last an age, with the breath from Marianne’s nose heating Hilda’s skin. It was everything she could have wanted.

But it came to an end. Marianne pulled away from her slowly, fireworks lighting up the inside of Hilda’s mind until eventually she opened her eyes again. A bashful, worried face filled her vision, but Hilda merely gave the most contented of laughs.

“I’m sorry. I had to do that,” she breathed, feeling almost winded.

“No, no… Don’t apologise…”

Their first kiss, on the 1st of the Blue Sea Moon, had been so perfect.

So where had it all gone so wrong?

**Author's Note:**

> This is just the first part of the first longfic I've ever actually planned and put time and thought into, and I'm incredibly excited to share it with you all! I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> I would absolutely love to hear any feedback at all - it means the world to me!
> 
> Feel free to follow me over on my Twitter, @VeloxVoid, if you'd like to hear more about the things I've got in the works.


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